Department Personnel
Assistant Professor Manish Kumar | News
10/27/14
Graduate Student Patrick Saboe wins the 2013 EPA STAR Fellowship
Congratulations to graduate student Patrick Saboe of the Manish Kumar Group for receiving the EPA STAR Fellowship.
The EPA STAR Fellowship is a very prestigious national level fellowship that includes funding for Patrick for the next two academic years. Approximately 50-80 students nationwide are funded each year the competition is open. It is sponsored by the US Environmental Protection Agency and covers tuition, stipend as well as $5000 allowance for academic expenses every year.
Patrick will be included in the 2013 STAR Portfolio where his research project will be showcased.
Congratulations Patrick.
View the story, "Chemical engineering graduate student Saboe receives EPA fellowship grant" on the Penn State News website.
10/08/14
Faculty member Manish Kumar and graduate student
Patrick Saboe author a paper published in Advanced Materials
Faculty member Manish Kumar worked with chemical engineering graduate student Patrick Saboe and other researchers at Penn State to published a paper titled, "Two-Dimensional Protein Crystals for Solar Energy Conversion" for the August 2014 issue of Advanced Materials.
The paper discusses the creation of organized arrays of active photosynthetic proteins on electrodes. It builds on ideas from structural biology and interfacial electrochemistry to efficiently harvest solar energy captured by photosynthetic proteins.
View the entire story, "Penn State researchers' paper published in Advanced Materials" on the College of Engineering News website.
07/24/14
Undergraduate student Stanley Chan receives the NASA Space Grant Scholarship
Chemical engineering junior Stanley Chan has been awarded the NASA Space Grant Scholarship from the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium (PSGC).
Stanley will receive $4,000 for the 2014-2015 academic year. The scholarship is awarded to full-time juniors or seniors who attend an accredited Pennsylvania college or university and maintain outstanding academic records. Students must be enrolled in science, engineering or mathematics and likely to pursue a career in an area of interest to NASA with demonstrated potential for graduate study.
As part of the Manish Kumar Group, Stanley is will research integrating photosynthetic proteins from cyanobacteria into artificial membranes to produce biomimetic solar cells for hydrogen production.
07/10/14
National Science Foundation grant will help
create beneficial biofilms on water purification membranes
A team of researchers from the Chemical Engineering Department (Manish Kumar, Thomas Wood and Tammy Wood) and Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences (Thomas Wood and Tammy Wood) receive a $400,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to develop a novel approach for preventing biological fouling of reverse osmosis desalination membranes titled, "Living Reverse Osmosis Membranes".
Reverse osmosis is a critical membrane technology for developing new water sources and often serves as the final barrier for removal of salts and other contaminants during water treatment. But reverse osmosis membranes are susceptible to biological growth and biofouling, which occurs when thick biofilms form, causing problems with the treatment process.
From left to right: Faculty member Manish Kumar, faculty member Thomas Wood and postdoctoral researcher Tammy Wood.
View the complete story, "NSF grant will help create beneficial biofilms on water purification membranes" on the Penn State News website.
07/02/14
Graduate student Yuexiao Shen wins the 2014
AIChE Separations Division Graduate Student Research Award
Graduate student Yuexiao Shen has been selected to receive the 2014 AIChE Separations Division Graduate Student Research Award. The award is given for outstanding publication by a graduate student in the area of separations (including membranes, adsorption, distillation, chromatography, crystallization, etc.).
Yuexiao was award for his work in the area of artificial water channels that mimic aquaporin proteins and publication title "Single Molecule Transport Characterization of a Highly Permeable Artificial Water Channel".
Yuexiao is member of the Manish Kumar Research Group, working on a project titled "Development of artificial and natural water channel based biomimetic membranes for desalination."
The award will be presented to Yuexiao this fall at the Separations Division Awards Dinner at the 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual meeting.
This is a very competitive award with request for nominations from around the globe. As part of this honor, Yuexiao will recieve a $200 check and a plaque. The award will be presented to Yuexiao at the Separations Division's Awards Dinner at the 2014 Annual Meeting in Atlanta. Yuexiao has been invited to attend the dinner free of charge as the guest of the Separations Division.
View more about Yuexiao's honor in "Chemical engineering graduate student Shen receives research award" on the Penn State News website.
Congratulations Yuexiao.
04/11/12
Graduate Student Yuexiao Shen
Receives Larson Aquatic Research Scholarship Award
It is our pleasure to announce that first year graduate student Yuexiao Shen, has been selected to receive the Larson Aquatic Research Scholarship Award from the American Water Works Association.
This is in recognition of the work that Yuexiao is doing with faculty member Manish Kumar. Gongratulations Yuexiao.